Thursday, May 01, 2014

Diversity for diversity's sake

When Americans are asked the reason they support these [affirmative action] programs, by a wide margin more say diversity than making up for past discrimination. When given the choice between the two, 63 percent say they favor affirmative action programs in order to increase diversity, while just 24 percent say they support such programs to make up for past discrimination.

That "diversity for diversity's sake" has become firmly ensconced in the cultural fabric of the modern West is more depressing to me than is the desire, however misguided or quixotic, to right past wrongs and compensate for the sins of our fathers.

The question was asked among those who are supporters of affirmative action. Of course they aren't going to say 'past wrongs' because (1) this has an expiration date and (2) it doesn't work for most minority groups.

I see a silver lining. They kinda sorta know that the 'past discrimination' explanation for underperformance isn't working after 50 years (!) of affirmative action. Is HBD awareness growing?

The above is an example of the glaring shortcoming in the leftist ratchet. The left can be extraordinarily powerful, but as soon as they move onto their next project, their old projects revert to a more natural state.

The left has focused laserlike on gay 'marriage' for the last 20 years, with a 24-7 media campaign that never ended.

But meanwhile income inequality soared, total guns in America soared, self-segregation soared in the liberal cores, racial wealth disparities increased, support for affirmative action shrank, trust of government shrank, knowledge of HBD increased.

Yeah, I suppose there are multiple ways to interpret it--but diversity for diversity's sake is intractable. It's not a problem to be solved; it's a value to be forever striven after. Working towards being able to 50 pushups is an attainable goal with a conceivable end. Working towards getting stronger never ends.

The support rates for affirmative action are all over the board. A lot of it depends on the wording of the question. The GSS shows support in the teens, while a recent Pew report shows majority support, and there are lots of survey results that fall in between.

It should be no surprise that people support more diversity in the abstract when doing so is seen as a means of signaling their high level of tolerance, intelligence and enlightenment and is consequence free for them.

The way to destroy this viewpoint is to always present a cause-effect scenario when asking the question.

It is commonly believed that increases in black enrollment will produce positive assessments from students about their educational experience. But in fact the correlations went in the opposite direction. As the proportion of black students rose, student satisfaction with their university experience dropped, as did their assessments of the quality of their education and the work ethic of their peers. In addition, the higher the enrollment diversity, the more likely students were to say that they personally experienced discrimination. The same pattern of negative correlations between educational benefits and increased black enrollment appeared in the responses of faculty and administrators. Both groups perceived decreases in educational quality and academic preparation as the number of black students increased. Faculty members also rated students as less hard-working as diversity increased.

The more visceral strategy is to impose diversity on people of younger and younger ages. Why do these mystical benefits of diversity only appear at college age? Shouldn't they appear at grade-school age too? Think of the joys of busing - importing diverse student populations into lily-white neighborhood schools and even private schools. Ask respondents why private schools should be free to limit/escape from diversity if diversity is such a grand value.